the goan I network
PANAJI
Goa’s Ritviz Parab and Fide Master Nitish Belurkar continued their impressive run at the Goa Chess Association’s 1st Goa International Open Tournament, at the Dr Shyama Prasad Mukherjee Indoor Stadium, Taleigao, on Friday.
Ritviz beat International Master Vardan Nagpal to move on to 6.5 points while Nitish displayed sound temperament to hold Grandmaster Himanshu Sharma to a draw, after stealing points from two International Masters in the earlier rounds.
On the top boards, International Master Karthik Venkatraman of India created an upset on second board when he defeated Grandmaster Neverov Valeriy of Ukraine to move on to 7.5 points and join the leaders, GM Idani Pouya of Iran, GM Babujian Levon of Armenia and GM Kasparov Sergey of Belarus.
Karthik started with queen’s bishop opening London System and in the end the knight and queen combination of Karthik was strong enough to create a plus position leading to a stunning win for the Indian IM.
Ritviz Parab started with E4 - King pawn and the opponent opted for French defence in exchange variation. At the end, he had an advantage of double bishop versus double knight, keeping them locked till the end of the game. Ritviz will play GM Tukhaev Adam of Ukraine in the last round.
Nitish started with King pawn Fianchentto against GM Himanshu. The opponent had disadvantage of separate pawn on the same file, which Nitish exploited to earn a draw. Nitish is on 6 points and will play GM Bernadskiy Vitaliy of Ukraine in the final round.
Fide Master Ameya Audi suffered a shock defeat against Vikramjit Singh of Railways. He stays on 5.5 points. Meanwhile, Niraj Saripalli defeated CM Arfan Bagus of Indonesia to move on to 5.5 points. Umang Kaisary and Tanvi Hadkonkar also drew their respective games to be on 4.5 points. Gunjal Chopdekar won to increase her points to 3.5 points.
Another shocking result was the draw of GM Deepan Chakkravarthy J against Rahul V Rahul that began with a Queen’s Indian Defence and though Deepan was pawn up it was not enough to convert into a win.
On the first board, Idani began with queen pawn Catalan opening and the match went on equal footing which lasted for 108 minutes. Idani had a pawn advantage but couldn’t make the best as it ended in a draw. On the final day, Karthik will play top seed GM Idani while Babujian Levon will play and GM Kasparov Sergey.
